Al Pacino might be the oldest actor to ever have a child, but unfortunately, he’s been shooting blanks at the cinema. With misfires such as Knox Goes Away, House of Gucci, and now, Dead Man’s Wire, the chameleon-like method actor has entrenched himself in the gritty crime milieu that established him as one of the great actors, but his recent films haven’t packed the same visceral punch they once did. Obviously, the chance to team with B-cinema legend Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) and the chance to explore another true-story bank heist similar to his incendiary classic Dog Day Afternoon sounded great on paper. Plus, he gets a surly bayou accent! But what’s on screen lacks the wonderful style and lightning bolt energy that made his early films pop.
Pacino isn’t the focus of this throwback thriller. That honor goes to It actor Bill Skarsgård, who hasn’t fully shed his zany clownishness for the role of Tony Kiritsis. Inspired by a 1977 real-life Indianapolis hostage standoff, Kiritsis is an entrepreneur whose efforts to build a mall have been upended by Pacino’s loan boss character, M.L. Hall. A live wire with dynamite in his eyes and tar in his heart, Kiritsis is a product of his suffering — the awkward loner is a clown whose antics serve an honest purpose: to stick it to the capitalist infrastructure that ostensibly ruined his career. It’s easy to see why ’70s America sided with the hot-tempered thief. He’s just another blue-collar dude hindered from climbing the corporate ladder by the powers that be.
Van Sant has always had an affinity for victims, outsiders, and the way violence and the media intersect, exploring those themes through the newscaster satire To Die For and the publicity surrounding queer politician Harvey Milk, which makes this highly publicized robbery a fitting target for Van Sant, who frames Kiritsis as a folk hero in the same vein as Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon.
As a media stunt, Kiritsis breaks into a bank, films his hostage situation for the press, and straps a shotgun between him and his hostage using a live wire, so that if anyone were to separate him from M.L Hall’s son Richard (Dacre Montgomery), the banker would be blown to bits. After holding his man at gunpoint, he finally forces the stunned hostage to admit, drenched in an Olympic-sized pool of sweat, that his paps hindered Kiritsis from purchasing the mall in order to save a buck.
It’s a maddening, infuriating, pulse-pounding idea, but why do those emotions not register on the audience? Rogue heroes taking matters into their own hands are a sure-fire way to elicit emotions of immense frustration and, by the end, cathartic revenge, out of moviegoers who themselves have experienced setbacks by the powers that be (see: Dirty Harry, Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon). But for all of Kiritsis’ righteous rage, echoing Howard Beale’s “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore” rant in Network, the movie itself never reaches the same delirious heights and simmering energy of Skarsgård’s eloquently manic performance.
It ends up being bogged down by an ensemble of talented actors whose characters distract from the robbery at hand. Colman Domingo is perfectly suited for a smooth baritone DJ commenting on the heist, Dacre Montgomery is decent at playing the hostage with a gun to his head, Myha’la is a news reporter who, unrelated to the premise, is given ample dialogue about unfair racial stereotypes, and an unrecognizable Carey Elwis is an FBI agent who knows Kiritsis from his heavy drinking days.
Even more distracting is Sant’s music choices, utilizing smooth soul songs when the action calls for full throttle bangers, though his use of Burt Bacharach’s “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” is a cute nod to iconic bank robbers Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Throughout the film, I couldn’t help but think about all the classics this movie is trying to emulate and how much more vivacious, spontaneous, and important those American New Wave films are. Despite creating a throwback action flick, which many people have been begging for when they complain “they don’t make movies like they used to,” this film just isn’t able to revitalize that creative energy. This is Dog Day Afternoon with a Pacino, but none of the gripping charisma. ❖